THE MANIC-DEPRESSIVE FATHER IN GEORGE MEREDITH'SHARRY RICHMOND

Abstract

George Meredith's 1871 three-volumenovel,The Adventures of Harry Richmond, follows the careers of the title character and his flamboyant father Richmond Roy, who perennially expects a court case to prove his claim to royalty. In the course of the narrative, the older Richmond changes from a comical, magical figure of enthusiasms and entertainments to a wreck of instability and loss. Roy's overindulgence, womanizing, and financial extravagance link such damaging and self-destructive behavior to an illness called in Meredith's day “circular insanity” – today known as manic-depression or bipolar disorder. From wild spending sprees to hypersexuality and delusions of grandeur, Roy's symptoms fit many of the major and associated criteria for recognizing manic-depression. Meredith begins the novel with a scene establishing clues about Roy's pathology. Though romanticized by Harry – and often by reviewers and critics as well – Roy's initial appearance reveals not a father coming in the middle of the night despite all obstacles for his five-year-old son; rather, the penniless Roy has walked in manic sleeplessness to coax money from his wealthy, neglected wife. Furious at his father-in-law's refusal to admit him, Richmond Roy then disappears into the darkness with his small son instead. The author's own family history and a character that parallels Roy in an earlier novel suggest that Meredith may have taken a personal interest in examining bipolar behaviors.